Details

Category: Feature
Media: Video
Turnaround time: More than a day but less than a week

Description of story

Walter Moore is one of many musicians who perform at the Carlos Pellegrini station, in the subway of Buenos Aires. Singing in English, he captivated a loyal audience. Every day many people go out of their usual way to listen him for a few minutes.
Without a formal job for over a decade and not entitled to retirement, Walter prefers continue to sing in the subway in Buenos Aires.

Feedback requested

General observations and tips for the improvement of that genre of work.

I loved that you chose to have this in black and white. It had a nice look and feel to it and I like the way you see things.

I'm curious why you chose to mix video and stils and not just pick one and stick with it. This seemed like a very video kind of story to me. Showing all the hustle in the subway with his playing, the details of him strumming, tight on his face as he sings (I can tell from your stills he really gets into it)

I did like how short it was and I got his backstory about why he plays, how much he works and why he loves it. At times however with the translation it was hard to read the words as they blended in with some of the background like at the 1:35 mark. I would suggest leaving it as is but put a light or dark gray bar behind the words so they stick out more and are easier to read.

The scene of the still at the 1:01 mark I absolutely love and imagine shooting that scene with video as he's miked up and plays as those people stream on by.

Technically:

1) Be careful of going in and coming out of dip to blacks. There were two spots in your piece where coming out into the next still it was abrupt because there was no dip to black like there was going in.

2) You audio was good, especially when Walter was playing

How long did you spend with Walter?

For a profile piece like this I would of love to have seen this go full circle. Him on the subway riding it (showing the loner that he is) to his spot, arriving and setting up, the playing (wide, tight, medium shots, etc) crowd reaction, the busy of the subway, details of money being put into the guitar case, the trip back home.

Then music. I wanted to hear more of it, he sounds really good. Would of love to of had the music come up and down with the volume with built in transitions with nat sound breaks.